Wednesday, August 29, 2012

A Life in 34 Boxes or Less

I don't think I can quite articulate to you exactly how much work Scott did in the past week. I'm not even sure if he can. To put it simply, he "undid" what two of us did over the course of a week, in two days. "One box at a time" he said to me on the phone in a daze, "one box at a time... Although I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, I knew that one box got me one step closer".

Before he left I told him not to worry about getting everything done, that we'd make a second trip to Trinidad to finish the job. Scott, however, is the more frugal one in our relationship (thankfully) and he couldn't justify spending more money to come down when he could do it himself. "I'm going for it" he told me when he arrived, "I'm gonna get it all off. We're not making another special trip. I can do it." That might just be the trait that I love most about my husband, the fact that in the face of a seemingly impossible task, he only sees the possible. He focuses, puts his nose to the grindstone, and makes magic happen. And whats more, he does it right. He doesn't take short cuts, he doesn't half-ass, he does it with his signature engineer's perfection and logic. I will tell you right now I could not have done it. To say I am impressed is an understatement.

The picture above shows Scott with 90% of our worldly belongings. Not only did he box everything up with the preciseness of a packaging engineer, but he organized a shipper to collect the boxes, shrink wrap them to a palate and send them to Ft. Lauderdale where they will be stored until our arrival at the end of September.

Un-packing all of this should be a treat! Looking very forward to moving onto Asante in the next month!

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Yep, you'd be amazed what you can fit on a boat. I remember when I moved off a 46' pacemaker, I said,"eh, it'll take three days." It took my daughter and I a full week! It's all the dishes and bedding! I also realized all the things I didn't need the whole time. :) bet it feels great to be able to start fresh again!

Did you get a weight total on the boxes when you shipped them? :) When we sold our little boat we had spent weekends on for the last two years we filled up our Expedition to the brim. The boat rose 2" out of the water. I felt ashamed that I had forced to her to carry my crap around for two years and prevented her from sailing her best. :) We are committed to not doing that to our cruising boat, but the rice cooker and margarita blender won't let us leave them in storage. :) Love the posts.